Children's ride-on vehicles are reduced-scale vehicles that are designed and sized for use by children. For example, children's ride-on vehicles include a seat adapted to accommodate one or more children, as well as steering and drive assemblies that are adapted to be operated by a child sitting on the seat. The drive assembly is adapted to drive the rotation of one or more of the vehicle's wheels.
One type of drive assembly that is often used in children's ride-on vehicles includes a battery-powered motor assembly that is adapted to drive the rotation of one or more of the vehicle's wheels. Typically, the vehicle will include an actuator, such as a foot pedal, push button or other user input device, which enables a child to select when power is delivered to the motor assembly. Some drive assemblies further include other user input devices, such as a speed selector and/or a direction selector, which are operated by a child sitting on the vehicle's seat to select the speed and/or direction at which the motor assembly is powered, and thus the speed and/or direction at which the vehicle travels.
The packaging and shipment of such children's ride-on vehicles can be a considerable expense for the manufacturers, and thus for purchasers of the children's ride-on vehicles. Shipping companies may charge based on size of a package and/or on the weight of a package. Accordingly, there is an incentive for toy manufacturers to reduce the size of a package as much as reasonably possible. One way in which a package size may be reduced is to package the children's ride-on vehicle in an unassembled condition; however, parents tend to dislike extensive assembly requirements. Moreover, the greater extent of assembly that is required by a parent, the more opportunity there is for parts to be assembled incorrectly or even broken. Even if caused by user error, these assembly errors often result in product returns and/or poor customer satisfaction.